
Hn flDemoriam 


THOMAS WILSON 


1832-1902 











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THOMAS WILSON — 1832-1902 


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THOMAS WILSON' 

The inevitable hour has struck for one of our colleagues, the 
late Thomas Wilson, Curator of the Division of Prehistoric 
Archeology in the National Museum, and it is fitting that the 
Anthropological Society of Washington turn aside from its 
wonted proceedings to pay its respects to his memory, to show 
its sympathy with his stricken family, and to learn the lesson of 
this most solemn of human events. 

You hear a bell toll in the night, at first with startling reso- 
nance, which dies by degrees into mute and eternal silence ; a 
stone is dropped on the smooth surface of a placid lake, and after 
the sudden splash and the ever-widening and weakening ripples, 
all is dead calm again. The silence and the calm follow, — and 
the air and the waters have no memory. 

You may have heard it said that the dead are in like manner 
soon forgotten; — there are the knell, the pall, the bier, — and 
then oblivion. But this thought is alike hurtful and unjust to 
the dead as it is to the living. Who among you are able or will- 
ing to erase from the intellectual records of the past the thoughts 
of our own fallen ones? Toner, Seely, Dorsey, Mallery, Pilling, 
Goode, and Cushing — are not their faces at this moment vividly 
portrayed on the walls of memory ? Their voices we hear again 
and again like sympathetic music, 

And we are filled with wonder how 
Or whence it has its springs. 

1 Presented by Dr Otis T. Mason at a meeting of the Anthropological Society of 
Washington, May 20, 1902. 


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But it does sound so near, 

We fancy we can almost hear 
The fingers sweep the strings. 

And now another comrade has passed out of the world of 
sense into the world of memory. Recall his stalwart form, his 
strong face, his pleading voice, his air, his spirit. If any question 
whatever concerning his science were now to arise, it would not 
be difficult to guess the side on which he would array himself. 
And there are as many memories as there are relations in life. 
Since each stands to each at varying distances and in different 
light, the individual recollections concerning our friend will be 
infinitely varied in color and tone. They are like a collection of 
portraits or photographs of the same person in different dress and 
at various periods of his life. 

But there is another safe depository of the treasures and deeds 
of those that are dead ; it may be called the institutional memory. 
Societies are organizations for remembering ; they are the recording 
angels that keep the books of fate ; they are like the Omniscient 
mind. It is possible to hold one’s tongue, to lay aside one’s pen, 
to fold one’s hands, but it is not possible to blot one’s name from 
this book of remembrance. If men have thoughts and utter 
them ; have messages to deliver and record them ; have searched 
for treasures or knowledge and found them, then the social mind 
and memory weigh them, label them, and put them in their 
treasure house. I will dwell on the thought at this transcendent 
moment because I am enamored of the life-in-common. 

From one point of view it seems to extinguish our individual- 
ity. But a single glance at nature exalting each part through the 
whole teaches the lesson that our only hope of true and lasting 
influence is through the social keeper of archives. Our dead 
colleague’s family will treasure his domestic virtues ; his friends 
will not soon forget his abundant hospitality and good cheer ; his 
fellow citizens are preserving the records of his services to art, 
education, and the commonweal ; and to us comes the inevitable 


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function of justly appreciating his thoughts and utterances con- 
cerning the natural history of man. 

Dr Thomas Wilson died in Washington on May 4, 1902, in 
the seventieth year of his age. He was born in New Brighton, 
Beaver county, Pennsylvania, of Quaker parentage. Both on his 
father’s and his mother’s side he was of North England race, 
having in his composition both Scottish blood and predilections. 
In his career he was an example of American life, — born on a 
farm, practised in a mechanic’s trade, instructed in law, devoted 
to politics, a soldier, a successful man, a representative of his 
government abroad, a friend of science. 

Dr Wilson was born in sight of a mound and may be said to 
have grown up in the remotest past. In his subsequent residence 
at Marietta, Ohio; Troy, Illinois; St Louis, Missouri; Marshall 
county, Iowa, the remains and relics of ancient American aborigi- 
nal life were never out of his sight. From this early training, and 
after retiring from his profession, he was, in 1881, appointed Consul 
at Ghent, Belgium, and afterward transferred to Nantes and Nice. 
In the first named place he was at once in touch with the cave man 
and the cave bear of the Moust£rian epoch. The skeleton of the 
latter in his hall at the National Museum is a trophy of his enthusi- 
asm. His stay at Nantes brought him into immediate connection 
with the megalithic monuments at Brittany and the marvelous 
collection of cave life in the Garonne region at the south. At Nice 
he was easily in reach of Switzerland, Italy, and southern France. 
After five years of consular service, Doctor Wilson spent two 
years traveling over Europe, exploring and studying wherever 
there was a new prehistoric station to be opened or a collection 
to be examined. During the official period he was constantly on 
the lookout for knowledge beneficial to his countrymen. He 
made exhaustive reports to the State Department on the Treaty 
of Ghent, the reclaiming of lands in the Netherlands, postal 
savings institutions, marriage of American girls to citizens of 
France, and more. 


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In the entire seven years of residence abroad archeology was 
his lure. With untiring zeal, accompanied by Mrs Wilson, you 
saw him exploring caves and cemeteries, measuring the monoliths 
of Brittany, tramping over Scandinavia and the British Isles, look- 
ing down through the glass bottom of his boat upon the remains 
of Swiss lake cultures, searching for hidden treasures in Etruscan 
tombs, and all the while taking notes, gathering photographs and 
publications, and collecting substantial specimens of man’s ancient 
handicraft. At the same time he was mindful always of the 
archeology of thought as preserved in folklore, his only privately 
published volume being Gilles de Retz, or Bluebeard. 

In 1887 Dr Wilson succeeded Dr Charles Rau as Curator of 
Prehistoric Archeology in our National Museum. Besides the 
routine of administration, he published monographs, assisted in 
expositions, and gave public lectures on anthropological subjects. 
The following is a list of his official papers : 

1888. A Study of Prehistoric Anthropology : Handbook for begin- 
ners. (Annual Report of the U. S. National Museum.) 

1888. Ancient Indian Matting from Petit Anse Island , La. (Re- 
port, U. S. N. M.) 

1888. Man in North America during the Paleolithic Period. (Re- 
port, U. S. N. M.) 

1888. Exhibit made by the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology 
at the Cincinnati Exposition , Cincinnati. (Report, U. S. N. M.) 

1888. Circular Relating to Prehistoric Anthropology . 

1890. Anthropology at the Paris Exposition in 1889. (Report, 
U. S. N. M.) 

1891. Minute Stone Implements from India. (Report, U. S. N. M.) 

1891. The P alceolithic Period in the District of Columbia. (Pro- 
ceedings, U. S. N. M.) 

1894. The Golden Patera of Rennes. (Report, U. S. N. M.) 

1894. 7 " he Swastika , the Earliest Known Symbol , and its Migra- 
tions. (Report, U. S. N. M.) 

1895. The Antiquity of the Red Race in America. (Report, U. S. 
N. M.) 

1896. Prehistoric Art . (Report, U. S. N. M.) 

1898. Arrowpoints , Spearheads, and Knives. (Report, U. S. N. M.) 


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We have here the born archeologist, the trained lawyer and 
special pleader, the consul working for the commonweal, and the 
graduate of European methods. The creators of this science in 
Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, France, 
Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, whose works we study 
and admire, were his personal friends, and they honored him with 
membership in their societies. Among the scientific organizations 
with which he was associated are the Anthropological Society of 
Washington (of which he was a vice-president for many years), 
the American Folk-Lore Society, the Society d’ Anthropologie 
de Paris, the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, the Soci£t6 d’ Anthropologie de Bruxelles, the Soci£t£ d’ 
Arch£ologie de Nantes, and the Archeological and Asiatic Asso- 
ciation of Nevada, Iowa. He was also a fellow of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the 
Military Order of the Loyal Legion and of the American Oriental 
Society, a commander of the Order of Isabella of Spain, and an 
officer of the Order of Leopold. 

Dr Wilson was easily the best informed man in our Society 
on prehistoric and protohistoric Europe, from the rude flints of 
Thenay, in Loir et Cher, to the relics of Waben, in Pas de Calais ; 
from the Eolithic period to the Merovingian ; in the Age of 
Stone, of Bronze, and of Iron; in Tertiary, Quaternary, and re- 
cent times. He knew the vocabulary of technic in each one, and 
it was delightful to hear him talk about “ le coup de poing ,” “ les 
pointes a main” and “ racloirs ,” about “ point es en feuille de 
laurier ,” “ burins en silex” and the rest. He would have been 
more than human if this foreign training had not dominated and 
guided all his subsequent opinions and utterances. And so he 
was, in company with eminent colleagues in both hemispheres, 
convinced that, but for our ignorance, we should be able in the 
Western world to look back over the perspective of human his- 
tory from the crowning elevation of the Twentieth Century to 
the first monument or relics of humanity. 


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I should be unfaithful to my duty if I did not extend on my 
own behalf and for this Society our sympathies to Mrs Wilson, 
who was the sharer of all her husband’s labors and enthusiasm. 

Into the outer court of private memories Dr Wilson has 
passed ; he has ascended the steps of the inner court of civic 
memories, as man of affairs, patron of art and charity, diplomat, 
and soldier; in the holy place of family life are kept burning the 
recollections of husband, father, brother ; and with bared feet he 
has stood alone in the holy of holies, as you and I must stand, to 
make an offering of his life work to the court of last human ap- 
peal, the judgment and conscience of organized and trained his- 
toric science. 










































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(From the American Anthropologist (N. s.), Vol. 4, April-June, 1902) 


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